| Reclaiming Education on a National Level |
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| Written by Eric Yates | |||
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Big news! PSU has gone national! The Philadelphia Student Union has helped launch the Alliance for Educational Justice (AEJ). AEJ is a national coalition of student-led and inter-generational organizing groups and allies working on federal education reform. The goal of AEJ is to reclaim education for students and parents at a national level. As the people who are directly affected by federal policies, we know what works and what needs to be improved. And while we recognize the effect our organizing has had on our own communities, we all realize that no one organization can have the same effect on the national stage.
AEJ had its first convening this past September in Washington, D.C. We worked on strengthening relationships, determining goals, talking about strategies and how to connect each group’s regional work to the national work. The best part about the convening is that there was a panel with the Department of Education (DOE) and I was on it! The panel was a chance for AEJ to introduce itself and its policy proposals to DOE officials. Our policy proposals are: 1. Access to a quality education for all young people regardless of immigration status 2. Adequate federal funding to provide all students with opportunities to learn 3. Rigorous and relevant curriculum for students 4. An end to the school to prison pipeline. My presentation was about inadequate school funding, something that PSU has successfully organized around regionally. I spoke about my experience in neighborhood schools and how under-privileged schools don’t get enough funding to prepare students for life after graduation. I spoke about my experience with the college application process to the DOE and how the lack of resources made it hard for me to apply to schools. (Despite all that. and with the help of PSU, I will be starting college in the spring at the Community College of Philadelphia.) The really good thing about the panel was that everybody got to speak on behalf of their organization and the members back home, and that’s what I did for PSU. •
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